What Is An American? The Civic Nationalists Have No Idea
A football game in Texas last week exposed the emptiness of ‘civic nationalism’ as a durable source of American identity.A football game in Texas last week exposed the emptiness of ‘civic nationalism’ as a durable source of American identity.The 'racist' UT Austin photo everyone was supposed to ignore: 'You're not allowed to have eyeballs'
Demographics in Texas are changing, but apparently Texans aren’t allowed to notice.
“Many people, not just myself, have seen the rapid and dramatic shift in our communities with, you know, people who by and large when you live here, you’re allowed to look around you, because you have eyeballs, and you notice things,” BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales says on “Sara Gonzales Unfiltered.”
“And so Bo French, who is my friend and also the Republican nominee for railroad commissioner here in Texas, noticed something,” she adds.
French had pulled a still from a University of Texas at Austin football game, where the crowd in one section was made up entirely of Indians wearing UT football jerseys.
“I heard UT graduation this year looked like this. I didn’t believe it. The problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined,” French wrote in a post on X.
“It’s an observation that he made. An observation that I think I will be able to prove to you is not racist, but just true. But be that as I may, you’re not allowed to say things like this according to the libs and the RINOs who I actually would just categorize as all one,” Gonzales says.
“You’re not allowed to have eyeballs. You’re not allowed to look at the community, at the demographics around you changing, you’re not allowed to, I don’t know, want Texas to just look like Texas,” she continues.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) responded to French's post, writing, “This is the Republican nominee for statewide office. Are other Republican elected officials going to condemn the intolerance and racism, or look the other way while it becomes normalized. This is how great political parties self-destruct. Sad.”
“Get out of here, John,” Gonzales says.
But it gets worse.
Texas Senate Democrat candidate James Talarico then chimed in, reposting Cornyn’s tweet and writing, “Thank you @JohnCornyn for your leadership. Racism has no place in Texas. @KenPaxtonTX: will you condemn this blatant racism or will you cower to extremists?”
Paxton responded, “I condemn racism in all its forms, including James Talarico saying white men are America’s top terror threat and that he prays to overcome his own ‘whiteness,’ whatever that means. Only one person in this race has a history of dividing Texans by race, and it’s James Talarico. I will continue to focus on uniting our State and bringing together the broadest possible coalition to fight for Texas, our values, and our families.”
“Truly,” Gonzales comments, “a mic-drop moment from my friend Ken Paxton.”
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Wake-up call for Redskins ownership: Family of canceled native hero wants team name, icon to return
Blackfeet Chief John Two Guns White Calf was the warrior face of the NFL’s Washington Redskins for 48 years.
Then his heroic life story, his proud portrait, and the team’s native identity were erased from American history in 2020, following a relentless and politically orchestrated seven-year cancel-culture assault by mainstream media.
Two Guns White Calf now is collateral damage in the woke cancel-culture war on America’s multicultural heritage. He was wiped from the US history books by the very same group that purports to defend native dignity.
White Calf’s family now has a message for the owner of the Washington, D.C., pro football franchise.
“We want to meet face to face with Josh Harris and tell him our side of the story,” family spokesman Thomas White Calf said in an exclusive interview with Blaze News.
“We want the Redskins back in the NFL, and we want the image of Two Guns back with the Redskins. We want to share with Harris the true history of the Redskins and the heroic life of Two Guns White Calf.”
The NFL franchise did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.
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The Redskins were renamed the Commanders in 2022, a year before Harris’ investment group bought the franchise. He inherited a public relations nightmare. Many fans, perhaps a majority, still call the team the Redskins. Its current image is unpopular. The Commanders ranked 29th out of 32 NFL teams in merchandise sales in 2024, according to a FinanceBuzz annual study.
And the White Calf family has been making rounds in D.C. for the first time this year, meeting with lawmakers such as Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) and sharing their story with Redskins fans.
“I wanted to have the blessing of the family, to see if they’re OK with the name and logo, and now I have it,” said Redskins fan Jonathan Lynch after meeting the White Calfs in the shadows of the U.S. Capitol in May.
'We’ve been silenced long enough.'
Two Guns White Calf was one of the most famous Americans of his era. He fought to preserve native heritage and defend tribal treaties from the Blackfeet Nation of Montana to the halls of power in Washington, D.C. His death in 1934 was front-page news coast to coast.
The New York Times obituary lauded Two Guns White Calf as an American “dignitary” who made President Coolidge a member of the Blackfeet Nation and who gained fame as the model for the U.S. Mint’s iconic 1913 Indian Head nickel.
Two Guns White Calf became the face of the Redskins franchise in 1972, at the behest of leaders of the Blackfeet Nation and with support from Native Americans around the country.
Two Guns White Calf now is collateral damage in the woke cancel-culture war on America’s multicultural heritage. He was wiped from the U.S. history books by the very same group that purports to defend native dignity: the far-left, Soros-funded National Congress of American Indians, a powerful D.C.-insider organization with deep ties to the Democratic Party.
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Media outrage against the Redskins erupted with sudden ferocity in October 2013. Significant evidence indicates that it was orchestrated by the NCAI. The elite unit of cancel-culture assassins claims responsibility for erasing more than 2,000 native names and images from public display across the United States. The Redskins are the group's trophy kill.
The NCAI put Two Guns White Calf in its crosshairs in October 2013.
President Obama became the first chief executive to publicly criticize the Redskins on October 5. Just days later, the NCAI issued an inflammatory, racially charged 29-page manifesto titled “Ending the Legacy of Racism in Sports & the Era of Harmful ‘Indian’ Mascots.”
The report was heavy on incendiary accusations but light on actual evidence. It claimed the face of Two Guns White Calf was responsible for social decay, even suicide, in native communities, and that “the term ‘Redsk*ns’ is associated with the barbaric practice of scalping.”
Mainstream media appeared to take the NCAI missive as marching orders. The Associated Press, NBC Sports, New York Times, and Sports Illustrated, among others, released scathing attacks on the Redskins in the days that followed, each dutifully parroting the dubious NCAI narrative.
NYT columnist William Rhoden wrote a shocking hit piece on October 12 that branded then-Redskins owner Dan Snyder a racist, comparing him to notorious segregationist Democrat and four-time presidential candidate George Wallace (who vied for the party presidential nod as recently as the 1976 Democratic National Convention against Jimmy Carter).
NBC Sports blowhard Bob Costas added fuel to the inferno the following night.
“'Redskins' can’t possibly honor a heritage or a noble character trait,” Costas seethed in a "Sunday Night Football" halftime rant on October 13. “It is an insult, a slur, no matter how benign the present-day intent.”
The Redskins and team owner Snyder were suddenly tainted as racists in the public sphere, days after Obama’s opening blast, by journalists peddling an NCAI fictional account of “redskins” etymology debunked by ample scholarship.
It’s as if the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame wrote a report on the legacy of Rolling Stones lead singers and forgot to mention Mick Jagger.
“The word ‘redskin’ reflects a genuine Native American idiom,” Smithsonian Institution senior linguist the late Ives Goddard wrote in 2005. He called the media narrative “fictional” in a letter sent four years later to the Washington Post. Editors deleted the world “fictional” before publishing the letter, Goddard claimed in a 2013 interview with Slate.
The Associated Press rigged the narrative, too.
“No consensus among Indians on ‘Redskins’ team name,” screamed an AP headline in a far-reaching wire story on October 8, three days after Obama’s critique.
The headline told a lie. The truth was buried in the very same story.
“In the only recent poll to ask native people about the subject, 90% of respondents did not consider the term offensive,” reporter Jesse Washington revealed far below the impactful headline in paragraph six, citing a 2004 Annenberg poll.
The AP headline suggested a Native American community torn apart over the Redskins issue. The only data the AP reported revealed a community united by overwhelming consensus.
The Washington Post conducted a similar poll of native opinion in 2016. Same result: 90% of Native Americans had no problem with the Redskins name or image.
Big-city white media elitist Bob Costas called “redskins” an “insult” and “a slur.” Nine out of 10 Native Americans disagreed.
The NCAI never offered polling data in its October 2013 media directive or in any public statements before or since. It’s obvious why. The mainstream media treats the NCAI as the sole voice of the American Indian. But its woke agenda contradicts the overwhelming opinion of American Indians.
Proof of the NCAI’s deceit is found in the October 2013 media missive. The 29-page report is devoted entirely to two topics: Native American sports logos and the history of the Washington Redskins.
Two Guns White Calf served as the face of the Redskins for 48 years, one of the most familiar sports logos in the U.S., for more than half the organization’s 95-year history.
Yet the NCAI report somehow forgot to mention the name of the Blackfeet hero at the very center of the entire controversy. The most celebrated American Indian since Sitting Bull was erased from history by the National Congress of American Indians.
It’s as if the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame wrote a report on the legacy of Rolling Stones lead singers and forgot to mention Mick Jagger.
The media followed the NCAI lead. The name John Two Guns White Calf never appeared in any of the thousands of media stories bashing the Redskins that followed from 2013 to 2020. Costas and NBC Sports never mentioned him. Rhoden and the NYT never mentioned him. The AP never mentioned him. ESPN never mentioned him. The hometown WaPo never mentioned him.
“In the rush to erase a supposed stereotype, American media erased a real native man — Two Guns White Calf,” Native American scholar Andre Billeaudeaux, author of “How the Redskins Got Their Name,” told Blaze News.
The NCAI did dirtier than erase Two Guns White Calf from American history. It dehumanized him. The NCAI labeled the proud portrait of the most famous Indian of his era a “savage and clownish caricature.”
It did so with brazen audacity. The entire time the NCAI was at war with the image of Two Guns White Calf, Chief Illiniwek of the University of Illinois, the Fighting Sioux of North Dakota, and so many others, it represented itself with a cartoonish caricature far more “savage and clownish” than any of those it attacked.
To this day, visitors at NCAI headquarters in Washington, D.C., wipe their dirty shoes on a floor mat featuring the cartoon-clown native image of its organizational logo.
The White Calf family has suffered in the same anonymity, ignored by the NFL, the NCAI, mainstream media, and the Washington, D.C., pro football franchise.
“We’ve been silenced long enough,” Thomas White Calf told Blaze News. “We’re proud of Two Guns. The Blackfeet Nation is proud of Two Guns. We want to meet with Mr. Harris to tell him why.”
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'Staged armed robberies': 11 Indian nationals catch visa fraud charge amid conspiracy allegations
In a years-long case, more suspects are being charged in connection with an alleged visa fraud conspiracy ring.
On Friday, the Department of Justice charged 11 individuals in connection with "a conspiracy to carry out staged armed robberies of convenience stores for the purpose of allowing store clerks to falsely claim they were crime victims on immigration applications."
The DOJ claimed the purpose of the scheme was to allow the 'victims' of the 'robbery' to falsely claim they were victims of a violent crime on an application for a U visa.
Ten of the 11 suspects, all of whom are Indian nationals, were arrested in states where they were "unlawfully residing," including Massachusetts, Missouri, Kentucky, and Ohio, according to the DOJ's press release.
"An 11th Indian nat'l who was deported to India has also been charged," the Boston FBI announced on social media. The 11th Indian national was deported after "unlawfully residing" in Weymouth, Massachusetts.
According to the DOJ's press release, the scheme involved staging armed robberies in which the "robber" would threaten store clerks with an apparent firearm, take cash from the register, and flee. The clerk would then wait five minutes or more before calling police to report the incident.
The store owners were compensated by Rambhai Patel, sentenced in August for his role in the scheme, and his alleged co-conspirators, while the "victims" allegedly paid Patel to participate in the scheme.
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The fraud scheme appears to have begun in March 2023. Those charged on Friday are alleged to have "either arranged with the organizer to set up each robbery or paid for themselves or a family member to participate as a 'victim.'"
According to an August 2025 sentencing announcement from the DOJ, Patel and Balwinder Singh, who was also charged in December 2023, organized "at least 18" staged armed robberies.
Singh pleaded guilty and was set to be sentenced in September 2025.
Citing charging documents, the DOJ claimed the purpose of the scheme was to allow the "victims" of the "robbery" to falsely claim they were victims of a violent crime on an application for a U visa.
According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the U nonimmigrant status visa is "set aside for victims of certain crimes who have suffered mental or physical abuse and are helpful to law enforcement or government officials in the investigation or prosecution of criminal activity."
Jitendrakumar Patel; Maheshkumar Patel; Sanjaykumar Patel; Amitabahen Patel; Sangitaben Patel; Mitul Patel; Rameshbhai Patel; Ronakkumar Patel; Sonal Patel; Minkesh Patel; and Dipikaben Patel all face one count of conspiracy to commit visa fraud.
The charge of conspiracy to commit visa fraud carries a sentence of up to five years in prison, three years of supervised release, and a fine of $250,000.
Those charged on Friday were released after initial appearances and will appear in federal court in Boston "at a later date," the DOJ said.
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The taboo conservatives refuse to confront
There has been a lot of panic, among the conservative commentariat especially, over the growing desire among younger white Americans to receive representation as a collective political bloc. At some level, that reaction is understandable. Race is not the healthiest fixation when it comes to identity.
But the way conservatives have responded to this trend is deeply misguided.
The only way to lower the salience of race is to stop importing ethnocentric cultures and to eliminate political carve-outs for minority communities already here.
For decades, whites have watched every other group in America successfully demand political action as a bloc from both the left and the right. Democrats build their entire coalition around racial grievance, but even conservatives regularly address the needs of minority communities as collective groups. Despite their hostility to “identity politics,” Republicans eagerly cater to it — just not for their core constituency, white Americans.
If conservatives genuinely worry about the rise of white identitarianism, they should stop lecturing young white Americans and start addressing the behavior of the communities they currently pander to.
First, it helps to define terms. “Race” and “ethnicity” are often treated as interchangeable, but they are not. Race is a broad macro category, while ethnicity operates at a more granular level. Swedes, Italians, Irish, and French are all considered white. Ethiopians, Nigerians, African Pygmies, and Somalis are all considered black.
These categories matter, but ethnos is often a more organic and useful way to understand group behavior.
Ironically ethnocentrism varies widely across populations and tends to be particularly low among white Europeans and their descendants. A society composed primarily of people of European extraction, even with some immigration, tends to be relatively tolerant and open. New arrivals who may initially carry ethnocentric instincts are less able to sustain them when they lack a large co-ethnic base.
Assimilation follows naturally under those conditions.
Identity is also not binary. It consists of nested loyalties that rise or fall in importance depending on scale. In small societies, tribe or ethnos dominates. As civilizations expand and absorb new members, identity shifts toward broader categories — often religion or nationality.
White Americans once lived in sharply defined ethnic enclaves. Irish, Italian, Dutch, and German neighborhoods were common. In some cases, the U.S. government actively broke up German-language communities, forcing children into English-speaking schools. Over time, those European ethnoses dissolved into a shared American identity.
That process breaks down when the government imports large, concentrated populations that share a common ethnicity and have not gone through the same scaling process. These groups face no incentive to abandon ethnocentrism because they can successfully deploy it. Co-ethnics ensure access to jobs, education, marriage, and community without assimilation.
In a system where one group must compete on pure individual merit while others are allowed to operate on collective ethnocentrism, tribalism wins. Once it proves effective, the salience of race explodes. When young whites see every other group using the winning strategy, the question becomes unavoidable: Why are we the only group forbidden from doing so?
The problem is not just that tribalism works. The system has been actively rigged against white males.
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Jacob Savage’s recent article “The Lost Generation” detailed the extent to which universities, media institutions, and corporations have systematically excluded white men. The piece gained attention partly because it came from the left, but conservatives like Jeremy Carl and Heather Mac Donald have been warning about the same dynamics for years.
Whites — especially young white men — are barred from advocating as a group. At the same time, they are punished as a group. Telling them identity politics is immoral while allowing explicit anti-white discrimination guarantees a predictable response.
The conservative establishment’s answer has been a vague denunciation of ethnocentrism that somehow applies only to whites. Conservatives pay lip service to opposing identity politics while courting explicitly racial organizations. They speak seriously to black, Indian, Hispanic, and Jewish advocacy groups and treat their leaders as legitimate representatives.
Donald Trump recently hosted the American Hindu-Jewish Congress at Mar-a-Lago to discuss combating bigotry. You will not see a dinner honoring representatives of a “White American Congress” to discuss anti-white discrimination — despite overwhelming evidence that such bias is widespread.
That double standard is too obvious for young whites to ignore forever.
If conservatives were serious about halting the rise of collective white identity politics, they would stop scolding young whites for noticing reality. They would confront systemic bias in academia and corporate hiring. To its credit, the Trump administration has signaled an intent to act — but far more is required.
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A serious response would include an immigration moratorium and aggressive prosecution of ethnic cartels. And yes, every tech department staffed entirely by one ethnic group is not evidence that “there were no qualified white applicants.” Conservatives should lecture blacks, Indians, Hispanics, and Jews about ethnocentrism with the same intensity they reserve for whites.
If for no other reason, whites actually vote Republican. Most of the other groups do not.
If conservatives truly fear the rise of collective white politics, they should reduce the number of ethnocentric populations young whites are forced to compete against on pure merit. The only way to lower the salience of race is to stop importing ethnocentric cultures and to eliminate political carve-outs for minority communities already here.
In short, show young whites they can succeed without tribalism by actually punishing the tribalism practiced by everyone else. Summon the courage to confront the behavior you claim to fear — in the groups already practicing it.
Illegal drivers, dead Americans — this is what ‘open borders’ really mean
Wherever you’re reading this, your day almost certainly began on an American road. You might have driven your kids to day care, headed to work, or grabbed a coffee. Even cyclists rely on the same system. Those routines rest on one basic assumption: The people operating massive commercial vehicles are trained, vetted, and accountable.
The assumption is disintegrating because the country is still digging out from the chaos of the Biden administration’s border collapse. President Trump is trying to put the pieces back together, but the wreckage didn’t disappear overnight — and we see the consequences on our highways.
America’s highways shouldn’t become another casualty of Washington’s failures. Neither should American workers.
A recent tragedy in Florida makes the point. A 28-year-old man from India made an illegal U-turn on the turnpike and allegedly killed three people. He reportedly entered the United States illegally and still obtained a commercial driver’s license. In California, a 21-year-old — also allegedly in the country illegally — slammed his semi into stopped traffic on Interstate 10, killing three more. Authorities say he crossed the border in 2022 during the peak of the Biden administration’s open-border surge.
These cases aren’t flukes. They reflect a system that stopped taking seriously who gets behind the wheel of an 80,000-pound vehicle.
The incentives run in one direction. The trucking industry faces a driver shortage. Instead of raising wages and restoring what used to be a proud, middle-class profession, too many companies cut corners by hiring illegal labor willing to work for less. That choice endangers families on the highway and robs American truckers of the wages they earned by playing by the rules.
Every illegal driver creates two problems. First, a safety threat to everyone sharing the road. Second, downward pressure on American workers’ earnings. Flood the labor market with illegal labor, and you weaken the people who keep the country moving.
Trucking remains a central pillar of the American economy. Nearly everything in your home arrived on a truck. These jobs once supported families. They now absorb the fallout from policies that ignore the consequences of illegal hiring.
Fixing this requires basic seriousness. That means, at the very least, strict verification, no loopholes, and no more rubber-stamped licenses issued without proof of legal status. And no more pretending that illegal immigration leaves public safety and wages untouched.
The country depends on trucking. The system works only when drivers are properly trained, thoroughly vetted, and in the country legally. It fails when policymakers encourage shortcuts and lower standards to satisfy an open-border ideology.
This debate isn’t abstract. It’s about safety. It’s about economic fairness. It’s about recognizing that border policy shapes everyday life — including the safety of your morning commute.
America’s highways shouldn’t become another casualty of Washington’s failures. Neither should American workers. Both deserve leaders willing to enforce the rules that keep this country safe and prosperous.
California declares Hindu observance an official state holiday
Millions of Indians have flooded the United States in recent years. Now, their political force is being felt in one of their most popular destinations, California.
On Tuesday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed a bill into law that will make Diwali, also known as Deepavali, a state holiday. The bill, sponsored by assembly members Ash Kalra and Darshana Patel, will take effect on January 1, 2026.
'This day is marked as the 15th day of the month of Kartik in the Hindu lunar calendar of each year.'
The law amends relevant sections of the code of civil procedure, the education code, and the government code.
The new law designates Diwali as an official state holiday. In the text, this day is marked as "the 15th day of the month of Kartik in the Hindu lunar calendar of each year."
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Diwali often falls in October or November of the Gregorian calendar accepted universally in the West.
According to Britannica, Diwali is a festival celebrated in Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism, and sometimes Buddhism. The name derives from the Sanskrit term "dipavali," meaning "row of lights," and celebrates the victory of light over darkness.
According to a Pew Research study published in May 2025, "960,000 out of the nation’s Indian population of 4.9 million, or 20%, live in California."
Other states with large Indian populations include Texas, New Jersey, New York, and Illinois.
California is the third state to make Diwali an official state holiday, following Pennsylvania and Connecticut, according to the AP.
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Woke CEOs mocked conservatives. Now the joke’s on them.
Corporate America is bending to conservatives’ market influence. Not out of sudden ideological sympathy, but because conservatives have more economic power than the left — and they’ve stopped pretending not to notice.
For years, corporations ignored conservative concerns. Worse, they often went out of their way to antagonize them, stripping away team mascots like the Redskins and Indians, embracing diversity quotas, and saturating entertainment with left-wing tropes. The squeaky wheel got the grease, and the left made all the noise.
Free markets punish bad bets more effectively than Washington ever could. Let them.
Conservatives, meanwhile, were taken for granted. Corporate leaders assumed they would keep buying no matter how many insults were thrown their way. For a long time, they were right.
That ended when conservatives started fighting back. Bud Light’s Dylan Mulvaney stunt turned into a disaster. Victoria’s Secret collapsed under its “new image” campaign. Cracker Barrel’s woke makeover backfired so badly its chairs stopped rocking. And when employees mocked Charlie Kirk’s assassination, corporations finally began to realize that “the customer is always right” still applies.
Numbers don’t lie
Corporations aren’t embracing conservatives because they’ve had a change of heart. They’re doing it because they need to survive.
The 2024 election was a wake-up call: Conservative voters outnumbered liberals 35% to 23%. Add moderates, and non-liberals outnumbered liberals more than three to one.
Conservatives overwhelmingly vote Republican. Ninety percent cast ballots for Trump. Pew data shows a majority of middle- and upper-middle-income Americans lean Republican — and 51% of Americans identify as middle class. That’s a lot of disposable income.
Family size makes the math even stronger. The Institute for Family Studies reports that counties where Trump won big also have higher birth rates: 1.76 compared to the national average of 1.63. Harris counties, by contrast, averaged just 1.37. Republicans also want bigger families: half want three or more kids, compared to only 31% of Democrats.
Bigger families and higher incomes mean bigger market clout. And the left’s most extreme advocates — the loudest drivers of corporate wokeness — are a small minority inside an already shrinking ideological bloc.
Why the shift happened
So why did corporations bow to the left for so long? Two reasons.
First, executives themselves lean left. Pew Research found upper-income Americans tilt Democrat, and CEOs have marched steadily leftward over the last two decades. Second, conservatives tolerated it. They didn’t punish woke messaging, making it appear costless for companies to indulge their leadership’s politics.
That illusion is gone. Conservative consumers are awake. And companies are finally capitulating to reality.
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Don’t let government ruin it
This is why Republicans should resist the urge to meddle. FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr made a mistake threatening ABC over Jimmy Kimmel. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way”? Let’s not.
That kind of government action obscures the real shift — a market correction, not a political one.
Markets speak louder than regulators. If conservatives let economics do the work, corporations will continue adjusting out of necessity. But if government steps in, companies will chalk the change up to political coercion, not consumer demand, and drift back toward the left as soon as administrations change.
Already the left is trying to spin it that way, casting Jimmy Kimmel as a martyr for “free expression” instead of what he is: a bad business decision. The left wants companies to believe government, not consumers, forced the pivot.
Conservatives know better. Free markets punish bad bets more effectively than Washington. Let them.
White House's H-1B proclamation sparks confusion and backlash
On Friday, President Trump signed a proclamation entitled "Restriction of Entry of Certain Nonimmigrant Workers," to many people's excitement. However, the White House subsequently issued a clarification that appears to frustrate many people's expectations about the order, leading to outcries of confusion over the weekend.
The order detailed the White House's plan to impose a $100,000 fee on H-1B visa applications — a much heavier financial burden on the employer than the previous total of roughly $10,000 in fees, as Blaze News previously reported. It was expected that this new fee would shift hiring incentives back toward American workers rather than imported foreign labor, primarily from India, through visa programs.
'The problem is that he missed the ones that already entered. ... No more half measures.'
However, confusion over the announcement spread when a clip emerged of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, standing next to President Trump in the Oval Office, repeatedly saying that the new $100,000 fee would apply annually to H-1B visa holders.
"$100,000 per year," Lutnick emphasized.
According to the White House's clarification, the $100,000 fee is a one-time fee that applies only to new H-1B visa applications. It also does not prevent any current visa holder from traveling in or out of the United States.
The White House's clarification described this proclamation as "an important, initial, and incremental step to reform the H-1B visa program to curb abuses and protect American workers."
The comments under White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt's post about the clarification were overwhelmingly negative.
"The problem is that he missed the ones that already entered. Trump campaigned on sending them all back. Now it’s time to SEND THEM ALL BACK. No more half measures," journalist August Takala quipped.
While the clarification was likely prompted by mixed messaging from members of the administration, more clarification may be necessary to understand why the measures against the fraud and abuse of the H-1B visas are not more stringent.
“President Trump promised to put American workers first, and this commonsense action does just that by discouraging companies from spamming the system and driving down American wages. It also gives certainty to American businesses who actually want to bring high-skilled workers to our great country but have been trampled on by abuses of the system," White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers told Blaze News.
"The text of the Proclamation is very clear and it is unfortunate that uninformed reporters and corporate lawyers attempted to sow chaos and confusion. Americans have another reason to celebrate unprecedented action by President Trump to protect Americans from cheap, foreign labor.”
Blaze News contacted the commerce secretary's press office but did not receive a response before publication.
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